The Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) has stepped up the alert lev­el in this coun­try to OR­ANGE Lev­el, as the coun­try pre­pares for the pas­sage of a se­ri­ous trop­i­cal storm at some point to­day, which is ex­pect­ed to bring thun­der­storms, heavy rain­fall and strong gusty winds and land­slides and land­slips.

A bul­letin is­sued by the Met Ser­vice con­firmed that at 5:00 am this morn­ing, the cen­tre of Po­ten­tial Cy­clone Two was lo­cat­ed near 9.3ºN lat­i­tude 55.2ºW lon­gi­tude or about 680 km East of Trinidad. The bul­letin not­ed the sys­tem is mov­ing to­ward the west near 23 mph (37 km/h), and a west­ward or west-north-west­ward mo­tion is ex­pect­ed for the next few days.

Met Ser­vice fore­cast­ers are pre­dict­ing that the sys­tem will pass near or over por­tions of the south­ern Wind­ward Is­lands tonight. As a re­sult, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains un­der a Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing.

“A Trop­i­cal Storm Warn­ing means that storm con­di­tions are like­ly over the warn­ing area with­in 36 hours,” the Met Ser­vice ex­plains.

Fore­cast­ers say pe­ri­ods of heavy to in­tense show­ers and/or thun­der­storms are like­ly, which can re­sult in rain­fall ac­cu­mu­la­tions of more than 100 mm.  In ad­di­tion, gusty winds in ex­cess of 70km/h can be ex­pect­ed. These wind gusts are ca­pa­ble of break­ing tree branch­es, dis­plac­ing un­se­cured roofs and loose out­door ob­jects, and can even top­ple over un­healthy trees.

The Met Ser­vice al­so points to the risk of land­slides/land­slips in ar­eas so prone and sea con­di­tions can be­come oc­ca­sion­al­ly rough.

The coun­try is be­ing urged to pre­pare to pro­tect lives, liveli­hood, and prop­er­ty, and ad­here to the fol­low­ing in­struc­tions.

“Plan your evac­u­a­tion to a shel­ter if it be­comes nec­es­sary. Al­ways have emer­gency sup­plies of food and wa­ter on stand­by. Se­cure loose out­door items and live­stock. Do not wade or dri­ve through flood wa­ters. Pre-po­si­tion sand­bags if your area floods and mon­i­tor riv­er lev­els. Fol­low the in­struc­tions of Gov­ern­ment Of­fi­cials.”

The Met Ser­vice says up­dates will be made avail­able at its web­site (www.metof­fice.gov.tt/) and that of the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (www.odpm.gov.tt), and their re­spec­tive so­cial me­dia por­tals.